


Fear of the Dark

by busaikko



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas Caroling, Community: rs_small_gifts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-21
Updated: 2006-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-31 18:32:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missed train leads to a long walk, good company on Christmas Eve, and the courage to face fear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear of the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [passakiss](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=passakiss).



> For passakiss who wanted _full moon on Christmas, carols, snow snogging, no sap, angst light or hardcore, Hogwarts and post Hogwarts, and silly random hats_. I deliver all of this save Hogwarts (though am not sure about the sappiness content).

"Oh - oh - oh, _buggery_ ," Remus said, breathless and flushed scarlet, broad hands spread on his knees as he doubled over, trying to get his breath back.

Sirius skidded to a stop - literally - windmilling his arms to keep from sliding onto the train tracks. He straightened instantly, brushing snow from his coat, and set his shoulders back, raised his chin, and tried to look bored. "There'll be another train," he offered, and Remus turned his head enough to glower. Remus' hair was dark with sweat at the roots and stuck up all over in untidy clumps the colour of honey. There was snow and ice in Remus' hair, not to mention the brambly scratches and the half-blackened eye. Sirius wondered if he ought to apologise for the not-quite-as-short-as-he'd-thought shortcut.

"There won't be another bloody train," Remus said. "That was the last one before the holiday." He straightened, one hand massaging his side. "Well. This is just lovely."

"Dumbledore would understand - " Sirius started, gesturing swishily with a finger, and Remus blew his breath out in a long, tight stream of frustration.

"I don't have my wand, either," Remus said flatly.

Sirius blinked, and then swore.

"Dumbledore was very insistent," Remus continued. "No magic. Disguised as Muggles. I thought it would be safer if I left my wand in your flat as well."

"You didn't trust me."

Remus' mouth quirked up into a smile. "To do without magic for three whole days? Not as far as I could throw you." He tugged at the straps of his rucksack and picked up Sirius' battered leather suitcase. The look he gave Sirius was similar to that which had prefaced the better Marauder pranks, but somehow it seemed more rueful now, sadder. Remus shook the snow from his hair and started walking.

"Except that it's been close to a week," Sirius said, falling into step easily and wresting his bag from Remus' ungloved fingers. "And tomorrow's - "

" - Christmas. I know," Remus said. "It's not more than twenty miles. We'll be in London soon enough, get our wands, and Floo through to my parents' in time for a late breakfast." He looked sidelong at Sirius. "I did say Peter'd be better for this job - he could've borrowed his girlfriend's car."

"And what good would Peter have been tomorrow night?" Sirius snapped.

Remus shrugged acquiescence. "Maybe someone will give us a lift." He nudged Sirius with his elbow. "All week you've been moaning about how there was no adventure in this Muggle lark."

"Yes, well, when our battered and frozen bodies turn up in the spring - " Sirius started, and Remus laughed, his breath making a cloud around his head.

"You're scared."

"I bloody well am not."

"You're scared of the Muggles in the dark."

Sirius paused. "My old nanny used to tell me stories about Muggles and the things they do. With their guns and their cars."

"Your old nanny's head was nailed to the stairwell, I think you said. I think she suffered from displaced anxiety."

Sirius thought about that, thought about all the fears and terrors that had been his childhood companions because he was supposed to become strong enough to fear nothing. In a perverse way, he might have his family to thank for the fact that here he was, wandering with a werewolf.

He realised with a start that he'd been thinking too long, that the conversation was dangling. "You can't apply Freud to house-elves," he said, sharper than he'd intended. "It's not like they're - "

"Human?" Remus murmured with that deceptive softness of his that was like this damned snow: so light when it fell that you barely noticed when it choked the life out of you. "I don't know. I've read a great deal of what Anna Freud wrote about defence mechanisms. I find her to be uncannily applicable to the psychology of Dark creatures."

"Lovely gods-damned weather we're having, isn't it?" Sirius said, modulating his pace so that he walked a full half-step behind Remus. All his conversations with Remus over the past week had got progressively worse: he felt as if he'd been given the wrong script, somehow. Remus was in a sedate drama with wit and humour, and he was struggling with tortured dialogue that was most likely Continental and badly translated besides. He amused himself by stomping his left foot on the shadow of Remus' heart with every stride. The moonlight was as merciless as the cold, and the silence was not a comfort.

He'd thought this _favour_ they were doing for Dumbledore would be a throwback to the Marauders, to their school pranks. But he didn't see Remus enough these days to share that easiness with him any more. Remus had been so serious as he'd presented letters of introduction, and charmed antiques dealers over countless cups of dusty tea. He'd taken notes and photographs and drawn maps and diagrams, and when they returned to the grubby pub where they'd taken a room, Remus went straight upstairs and read books.

Sirius had drunk a little more each night before going to throw things at Remus' head. Small Muggle things: pens, matchboxes, buttons, guitar picks. Remus fielded them with baffled amusement (or annoyance, if they found their mark; fortunately, Sirius' aim when drunk was dreadful). Sirius couldn't explain himself. If it had been James, Sirius would have been in certain conversational waters; if it had been Peter, they would have played darts and billiards and talked rugby. But being stuck so close to Remus without a buffer: Sirius should have known it would be no good.

He shrugged and turned into a dog. Remus stopped short, and Sirius supposed he was biting his lip again to hold his temper in. Then Remus turned, picked up Sirius' suitcase, and continued slogging on through the slushy snow by the side of the road.

They walked like that for the next few miles, leaving the brick buildings that smelt of petrol and solvent behind. They were past Slough - Remus insisted on taking the old ways that ran along the river instead of the busier Muggle roads - when they stumbled into a picture-postcard-perfect little village. Sirius changed back to appreciate the view in colour vision (and also because it was getting harder to resist chasing rabbits in the dark woods). Soft drifts of snow shone like sugar in the moonlight, and they met up with a boisterous group of carol-singers who absorbed them easily, sharing out hot tea from a flask and promising mince pies.

The carol-singers had a James as well. He was stocky and studied music some place that made Remus whistle in appreciation. Sirius, listening to the others as he mouthed the words to the carols (his own singing voice was dreadful), thought that Remus was just as good a singer. But when he heard Remus' voice entwined with this James' clear tenor, he could hear the way Remus' voice frayed. He hated that the screaming agonies of lycanthropy would, inevitably, flay Remus' voice until he was barely able to speak, much less sing. _It happens to us_ , Remus had said with a shrug; the same thing he'd said about the first wound that had been bad enough to leave a lasting scar, back in sixth year.

A final handful of coins was dropped into the collection box for the church amid a chorus of _Thank You_ s and _Happy Christmas_ es, and the singers switched on torches as they headed home to the old vicarage.

Someone bumped Sirius' arm; when he turned to look, the girl in the green tartan beret gave him a wide smile of broad teeth. Sirius wasn't sure if she were plump or just well insulated against the cold. "Not one for singing, are you?" she said, and nudged him again. He tried to remember her name - Jenny, or Gwen, or - Mary, that was it, he thought. "Here's the turn-off - the house is just up the drive. We'll get some warm food in you. It's not snowed on Christmas for ten years - fancy walking all the way to London in this!"

"You're very kind," Sirius said. "I'm glad you didn't think us dangerous criminals."

"I trust my brother," she said, bobbing her head at the brother she meant - well over half the carol-singers turned out to be siblings, and the rest were their friends. "He knows things."

 _Oh, does he?_ Sirius thought, keeping an eye on the man as they flooded the house, shedding coats and scarves and wraps and gloves. The brother in question had a round, boyish face and a dreadful hand-knit jumper. _Not a wizard_ , Sirius decided - he didn't recognise him from Hogwarts. The man looked up suddenly and stared right at Sirius. His gaze felt ancient and _knowing_ , though it lasted barely the space of a heartbeat.

There was a flurry of activity centring on the kitchen into which Remus insinuated himself naturally, acquiring a light dusting of flour and, at some point, a handkerchief of something that he pressed over his blackening eye. Even without magic the table was soon laden with steaming hot pies and pudding, and pottery mugs of mulled wine were distributed with laughter and grace. Sirius felt out of place and inadequate amongst the Muggles, which was off-balancing. So much of what he knew how to do was dependent on an eleven-inch stick.

"Here." Mary's brother, the not-wizard, thrust a laden plate into Sirius' hands. "It's amazing how quickly all this disappears. I grabbed you the last of the papadums - Gwen's Gautam makes them, they're grand with that pumpkin stuff."

"Thank you," Sirius said. He glanced around the room, trying to recall who everyone was, and failed. He blamed the heat from the roaring fire and the alcohol, but he feared, deep down, that it was his breeding at work: they were only Muggles, after all. _Just like Remus,_ he thought bitterly, and swallowed down too much of the wine, too fast.

"We've overwhelmed you, haven't we?" Sirius found himself being steered towards the kitchen, which was perversely empty. "My family nearly gave Bran - " his host gestured to the peroxide-blond making Remus laugh - " fits the first time he met them all. Of course, that was Gwen's wedding, so it was doubly mad." The kitchen door was shut, firmly. "Bran says your eyes remind him of a dog he owned, once."

"Who are you?" Sirius asked, too busy drowning to be polite. "Did Du - were we sent here?"

Serious dark eyes blinked at him, owl-wise. "That's not what's important. I have a message for you, Sirius Black - "

* * *

It was time to go, and everyone followed them out into the yard, where the fumes from the car billowed white.

"I don't know how to thank you," Remus said. He wore, with ridiculous grace, a pink and red knit cap that had been dug out of a cupboard on his behalf.

"Give us a song, then," Mary said, stamping her feet on the frozen ground.

Remus grinned, took a deep breath, and then another. Sirius saw James half-pull the pitch pipe from his coat pocket, and then drop it in again as the first clear notes rang out in the falling snow:

_Kommet, ihr Hirten, Ihr Männer und Fraun!  
Kommet, das liebliche Kindlein zu schaun!  
Christus, der Herr, ist heute geboren,  
Den Gott zum Heiland Euch hat erkoren.  
Fürchtet euch nicht!_

They said their final goodbyes after that, and James threw open the car doors grandly. "If you think performing for that lot was embarrassing, wait until you've been chauffeured in my mother's Reliant Robin."

Sirius settled on top of a shifting pile of wood; Remus balanced himself on the other end with the suitcase on his feet; and they took off with arse-endangering speed. Remus deftly turned the conversation to motorcycles, and then dozed as James argued tyres and horsepowers and leather with Sirius. The miles flew past, and it was no time before they reached the bridge.

James protested that he could take them into the city, easily, but they said no, you've done more than enough, and Remus said tell everyone thank you from us, and they waved as he turned the car around lazily and the taillights disappeared in the snow.

Remus bumped his shoulder against Sirius' and they stood like that, looking out across the bridge, over the water, towards the city which looked like it was made of magic.

"Say something bad about Muggles now," Remus said, sounding as if he were smiling.

"I'll say what I'm thinking," Sirius said slowly. "James' brother, the Muggle _dewin_ , told me the true power of the dark is that it makes us afraid and slaves to our fears. So. You should know, I'm very much afraid of what I'm about to say. That's why it's what I didn't say to you all week. I'm afraid you'll - not hate me, you wouldn't hate me, but… you'll see me differently. We won't be the same kind of friends, anymore."

Remus bumped Sirius on the shoulder again. "Go on, then. You see me naked and bleeding every month." Sirius couldn't repress a strangled kind of noise. "There's nothing you don't know about me," Remus continued. "And you should know that I don't value our friendship that lightly."

"Would you still want me there with you? On the full moon nights, and the morning after…. If I told you… if I said that I liked you?" Remus went still, staring out at the bridge. "If I said that I loved you?"

Remus stood motionless; Sirius made a half-turn to stand directly in front of that faraway gaze. He leant forward and covered Remus' mouth with his own, shutting his eyes for a moment, trying to make himself feel that this was what Remus wanted, too. After the moment passed, and he realised he was the only one kissing, he pulled back, just enough to drop his forehead against Remus' shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry."

Remus dropped the suitcase - accidentally on Sirius' foot - and then wrapped his arms around Sirius' back, carefully, patting him in a way surely meant to be comforting.

"I thought," Remus said, in a voice barely louder than the snow, "I thought you were going to tell me you were getting married, you were engaged, or something. That's what I thought. I had no idea, Sirius, it's - I'll need time to think. Please understand that, I need to think about this. I think I was wrong, I think this does change our friendship - "

"Oh, gods," Sirius said, grabbing Remus' coat with both hands.

"Do you know what it means, _fürchtet euch nicht_?" Remus asked, very gently. "Don't be afraid. You're not afraid of me as a wolf. . . ."

"You're more frightening when you think," Sirius said, turning his head and nuzzling his cold nose under Remus' jaw.

"I'd be a terrible person if you saying that you, that you love me - " Remus' voice went hoarse on the words " - didn't change anything. I'd be arrogant and shallow."

"Which you're not, not at all," Sirius said. Remus took a very small step backwards, just enough to dislodge Sirius from his hiding place, and put one icy hand under Sirius' chin to make him meet his eyes.

"I'm not afraid," Remus said, and Sirius' heart did double time.

"Good," he said. "Good, I'm glad," he said, leaning closer, being very slow this time so that Remus could stop him easily. "I won't be afraid either, then," he said, his mouth practically on Remus'.

"Ah," Remus said, and then Sirius was kissing him again, his tongue flicking into Remus' open mouth and sweeping across his teeth. Remus' hand slid round to the back of Sirius' neck and Remus was not saying _no_ and Remus was kissing back; in a way; tentative and unsure and sweet as the dawn. Sirius wanted it to last forever, but he was losing all sensation in his extremities and he thought that it might be better if Remus had something to anticipate - or even yearn for - while he thought.

So he pulled back and hefted his suitcase.

"It's not something I've ever done," Remus said, and Sirius was amazed to discover that he knew Remus well enough to be able to hear a blush. "Kissing blokes."

"I don't want you kissing blokes," Sirius said in alarm - sweet Circe in suspenders, he didn't want to make Remus go out and explore his sexuality. "I just. . . I'd be happy, if you decided, maybe, that it was me you'd want to be kissing."

"I still need to think," Remus said.

"Walk and think," Sirius said, swinging his suitcase as they stepped onto the bridge. "Do you think your mum'll have hot chocolate for us?"

"I certainly hope so," Remus said.

"Sing that song for me," Sirius said. "The one about not being afraid."

He didn't say, sing as much as you can while you still can. Love me as much as you can before the dark washes over us all. He tried to think that what he felt now would last: the rhythm of walking together over the bridge, in the snow; Remus' soul in the words of his song; and love overflowing in his own heart.

He would not be afraid.

  


: : : : : the end : : : : :  


**Author's Note:**

> Soundtrack:  
> Common Rotation - Don't Let's Start  
> Fuel - We Three Kings  
> Palace Brothers (Will Oldham) - I See A Darkness  
> Kommet, Ihr Hirten  
> Pete Morton - Shepherd's Song  
> Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars  
> O Du Fröhliche


End file.
